Lycos to offer e-mail, search services

Lycos rolls out a plan today to sell Lycos Network Services, a package of community-building applications.

The service includes WhoWhere's PeopleFinder, MailCity's e-mail services, Angelfire home page services, Web Guides and Lycos and HotBot search capabilities.

WhoWhere had pioneered the strategy before Lycos purchased it earlier this year.

The services are co-branded for each affinity site and advertising is sold by the Lycos network, with each affiliate site taking a 50% revenue cut. The network sales strategy allows Lycos to build numerous demographic profiles, to which it can target advertising.

"Our strategy is based on building multiple brands," said Darr Aley, VP-business development at Lycos Network Services, which plans on selling the services to affinity sites and Internet service providers. Affiliate partners include AT&T Corp., Juno Online Services, MCI Internet and iVillage.